Trulia reported today that 18% of San Diego homes for sale are listed for less that their original asking price. The average price reduction in San Diego is 10% and those price reductions cumulatively total $59 million. But looking at the big picture of the entire country, somehow San Diego does not have it as bad as other cities.
Trulia says that they tracked all price reductions from August 1, 2008 to August 1, 2009 to come to this calculation regarding cumulative price reductions on San Diego homes. However, Trulia reports that foreclosure listings were not included in their statistics, and only listings within the City of San Diego (not the entire San Diego Metro area) were included.
San Diego ranked 45 out of the 50 cities Trulia tracked. The rankings were based upon the percentage of homes with price reductions. Does this mean that San Diego area agents are better at pricing properties than, say, agents in Jacksonville, FL? Jacksonville ranked #1 on the Trulia price reduction list, with 38% of the the Jacksonville property listings priced less than the original asking price. Or does the relative difference in the rankings indicate that there is a LOT of buyer demand and SHORT supply of San Diego homes for sale? This later possibility is more what we would expect, since buyers are competing hand over fist to buy the discounted San Diego foreclosures and other entry-level real estate in San Diego. By the way, the San Diego MLS today shows only 9132 active listings…. compared to over 21,000 in August 2007.
That is quite a significant reduction in listings from 2007 to 2009. It would seem to support the notion that there is significant demand compared to supply. San Diego seems to be faring better than most other markets although one must wonder if the comparison would be the same if foreclosure listings were included.
We have been seeing huge demands for homes in San Diego priced under $500k, so were not surprised at all about this report. We actually see more overbids then price cuts.